The Christmas Blizzard


There was no white Christmas in Virginia this year, so we decided to seek one out. Conveniently, snow was forecast for New York. How convenient.

The Christmas weekend kicked off for Anna with a little ice skating on Christmas Eve day with Mom while Dad secured the hot chocolate. Anna is getting better at skating, but still not quite comfortable enough to let go of Mom's hand. She has requested to wear her snow pants next time because "the ice is cold." Good observation.


Ice Skating was followed by Christmas Eve mass at 6 PM, an event Mom secured tickets for earlier in the month. That's right - you need tickets for the 3:45 PM and 6 PM mass on Christmas Eve. The 3:45 mass is the most popular and was "sold out" by the time Mom got there (apparently you need to wait in line an hour in advance of the ticket hand out to ensure you get those tickets - something Mom was not willing to do). We are not sure exactly why 3:45 is so popular and we will probably never find out. Children are to bring bells to mass to ring, something Anna was happy to do. She was a bit too enthusiastic with her bell ringing and launched her bell, hitting a guy on the end of the pew. Fortunately, he was in the Christmas spirit and returned the bell. After church, everyone enjoyed a delicious seafood dinner. Anna got the milk and cookies ready for Santa (she insisted on leaving chocolate chip cookies) and wrote him a note. She also had Dad move the fireplace screen to ensure Santa did not trip over it when he came down the chimney.

Christmas morning Anna awoke at 7 AM (late for her) and was VERY excited about Santa coming. She was also excited about presents that arrived from Grandma (which exceeded Santa's) along with her uncles. The one thing she asked for was Thomas the Train, which she received. She also received other trains courtesy of her Uncle Tim and Aunt Loren. Uncle Rod sent her a nerf dart gun, to which Anna said "that's not for girls." Uncle Rod will have something to play with when he comes to visit. Anna spent the day playing with her toys while Mom and Dad watched the weather forecast for New York and tried to decide when the best travel time was. It was decided to leave Christmas night and beat the storm, so the family loaded up the car and headed for New York at 8:30 PM.
Anna was SO excited to be going to Aunt Mary's house that she stayed up practically the entire ride chattering for a large portion of the trip. She read the road signs as we went. "Mom - we're in New Jersey." We arrived at Aunt Mary's about 1:30 AM, where they were waiting for us. The snow started at 9 AM. What was forecasted as a snowstorm soon became a full fledged blizzard with 50mph + winds and snow.

If you are going to be snowed in someplace, Aunt Mary's is the best place you can be. She was planning on having several family members in for dinner, but one by one they canceled. The end result was enough food for several armies. The house was festive - the highlight of which was Uncle Joe's Christmas village (which is actually a small city). There was festive dinnerware and festive food - including reindeer pancakes and snowmen eggs (only at Aunt Mary's). The reindeer pancakes were quite a production and were limited to one reindeer for Anna. Everyone else had round pancakes.

Aunt Loren ventured out into the blizzard hoping to make it for dinner only to be forced to turn around and go home. Cousin Marguerite and Cousin Ed ventured out and made it to Mary's for a quick dinner before heading home. By the time the storm ended the next day, there were 22 inches of snow on the ground. We spent the next day shoveling the long driveway and playing with the dog in the snow. Anna was not so enthusiastic about the snow, but did briefly come out to play with her cousin James and his friend Patrick to make snowballs. On Tuesday morning, Aunt Loren again tried to come visit but got stuck in the elevator when the power went out. She eventually made it out, stopping for some bagels along the way to bring for breakfast.

Tuesday afternoon, we loaded the car and headed for Virginia. All was fine until we hit the New Jersey turnpike, which was a parking lot. Our usual 5 hour trip turned into 9 hours (2 of which were a stop at a mall to stretch and regain some sanity).
Anna had a great Christmas and enjoyed her time being spoiled at Aunt Mary's. All of us got to enjoy a bit of a white Christmas and then return to snow-free Virginia.

Check out more Christmas photos at http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2AbM2jJs3YsWFp













Happy Holidays!

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